Fort Sam museum moving to 'Quad'

Updated 2:17 am, Wednesday, February 13, 2013

This display titled “The Post at San Antonio” is one of the items from the Fort Sam Houston Museum that will be moving to the Quadrangle.

This display titled “The Post at San Antonio” is one of the items from the Fort Sam Houston Museum that will be moving to the Quadrangle.

Photo: Express-News File Photo

Image 2 of 2

NBR A view of the San Antonio skyline from the tower in the the Fort Sam Houston Quadrangle on Thursday, April 10, 2007. The quadrangle was built between 1876 and 1877. ( JERRY LARA STAFF )

NBR A view of the San Antonio skyline from the tower in the the Fort Sam Houston Quadrangle on Thursday, April 10, 2007. The quadrangle was built between 1876 and 1877. ( JERRY LARA STAFF )

Photo: JERRY LARA, SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS

Fort Sam museum moving to 'Quad'

1 / 2

Back to Gallery

The Fort Sam Houston Museum will soon move to the Quadrangle, the most historic building at San Antonio's oldest active military installation.

The museum, with archives documenting the lives of Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and other famous figures who served here, will close in September. It will be moved from its current site at 2340 Stanley Road and reopen in January in the Quadrangle's east wing, under a $5 million Army project.

The museum chronicles the history of the Army in San Antonio, from occupation of the Alamo church and Long Barrack starting in the 1840s, to the post today. It's one of three major installations that make up Joint Base San Antonio.

“While each Army museum showcases an aspect of Army history, there are very few that cover an entire post,” museum director Jacqueline Davis said in an Army release.

The museum — which grew from 1,000 artifacts in the 1980s to more than 8,300 today — outgrew its space, a 1905 mess hall, “but had nowhere to move,” Davis said.

News Channel

U.S. Army North, which is based at the Quadrangle, invited the museum to move there.

By the time construction of the Quadrangle and its landmark watchtower began in 1876, the Army had vacated the Alamo. The area known as the “Quad,” where Apache chief Geronimo lived for six weeks while in government custody in 1886, is open to the public. It's also home to peacocks, deer and other wildlife.

The move, just over a quarter-mile to the Quad, will give the museum twice its current display space and place it right on the post's perimeter. The Quadrangle, at 1400 E. Grayson St., is a fitting locale for the history museum, since it is “the second oldest military facility in San Antonio,” after the Alamo, which now is a popular historic site, said Lt. Col. James Woods, Army North deputy chief of staff.